


Crystalline

by Silvanuyx



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Character Near Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 12:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1649372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvanuyx/pseuds/Silvanuyx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kevin and Cecil have their final fight. It doesn't go well for Cecil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crystalline

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt from somewhere, the sentence "The place had a radiance about it." And I wanted to make a friend cry.

They faced each other, one reflecting the lights from the walls, the other absorbing it. Both stared eyelessly at the other, and the hate reflected off the crystal walls and grew.

“Brother,” Kevin crooned, smiling at him despite the heavy anger that Cecil could feel.

Cecil grinned, and it was a savage thing, full of teeth and rage. “Oh, we are hardly that,” he growled.

Kevin laughed, and it was a deceptively cheerful noise. “Oh, but of course. But we were spawned from the same place, so that makes us brothers, right?” he said, his smile wide and toothy.

Cecil snarled. “Hardly. Get your people out of my town,” he demanded, stepping forward. His shadows swamped the light from the crystals.

Kevin grinned and his own light drowned out the fainter light on the wall. “I would rather not. They deserve the light,” he said, and they lashed out simultaneously.

Their powers - bright light and shadowed dark - clashed over the crystals, and then their bodies clashed in the air in the middle.

Cecil had never been able to beat Kevin.

Light had always pushed back shadow eventually.

And today was no different.

Cecil was tossed back on the ground, and Kevin stood over him with a proud little smile on his face.

“Oh my brother, you may be older, but I am stronger,” he giggled, and he knelt down, and wrapped his hands around Cecil’s throat. “Let me hug you!” he chirped, and he started to squeeze.

Cecil choked, struggling against the hands at his throat. He clawed desperately at Kevin, kicking out and thrashing with his power, but to no avail.

His psychic vision was brightening to an unseeing white and he could feel his struggles weakening.

He could feel himself blacking out when Kevin suddenly pulled away with a scream. He breathed in deeply, his chest heaving as his sight darkened to normal.

Who had distracted Kevin?

Only one other person knew they were here.

His sight turned to Kevin at another scream, this one utterly familiar and filled with pain.

“Carlos!” he screamed, and lunged at Kevin as his brother’s magic lashed at Carlos, twisting and lashing and hurting him.

Kevin hissed at him, and flung Carlos away. Cecil tracked his sweetheart’s body as it flew through the air and slammed into a wall, then lunged with a scream.

Kevin shrieked as shadowy claws dug into his throat, and his pale blood sprayed when Cecil jerked his darkness away.

Kevin stared at him in shock as his blood drained from the wound in his throat, and Cecil snarled as the darkness ripped Kevin apart.

The light and the dark faded as Kevin died and Cecil pulled his power back into him.

He stepped over to his sweet Carlos, hearing the labored wheezes of his breaths, his mind distant and abstract as he lost himself in silent reverie for a moment.

This place had a radiance about it. It was beautiful.

It was a shame the memories it would hold were far from beautiful.

The crystals on the walls gleamed and shone with their own light, cold and distant as starlight.

But there were places where the crystal’s lights were dulled by smears of black blood and white blood and vivid red blood.

Cecil knelt down and gently touched Carlos’ brow with a sad smile. “My love, I’m sorry,” he murmured, gathering his injured lover into his arms and lifted him. “I told you to stay out,” he scolded, but it was gentle and guilty. He knew he shouldn’t do this, he shouldn’t move Carlos, but he needed to in order to save him.

Carlos gasped in pain as he was lifted, too broken and hurt to resist, and Cecil could feel it. He could feel the way his bones moved wrong against each other, could tell the way his legs were limp. “I had to. I could - I could save you,” he whispered, too weak to do more than that.

“Sweetheart, I know. I know, and I love you for it. You did, you saved me,” Cecil said sadly. But at what price? Carlos was bleeding heavily enough that it dripped on to the crystal floor, and he could see the thick bruises through the rips in his clothes. Kevin had hurt him badly. He refused to even think it, but Carlos could have died.

He was amazed and so, so glad that his Carlos was still alive despite everything

Because while he was alive, there was hope.

While he was alive, Cecil could save him.

“Ceec, it hurts,” Carlos whispered, tears slipping down his face.

Cecil kissed his perfect forehead and blinked tears from his eyes. “I’ll make the pain go away, alright? Just stay with me for a moment,” he said, and lay Carlos out against a large crystal, his back pressed up against it despite the guttural cry of pain his sweet, perfect Carlos let out.

Carlos lay there, hurt and broken and panting from the pain and Cecil felt so much guilt he was surprised he wasn’t bleeding from it.

“I’ll be back for you. When I can fix you,” he whispered, then smeared a mix of his blood and Carlos’ blood on the crystal Carlos was leaned again, and it started to flow around his lover.

Carlos looked up at him with complete terror and absolute trust in his eyes. “I love you,” he whispered as the crystal flowed over his legs.

Cecil reached over to touch his hair, smiling. “I love you too, so, so much,” he murmured, and snatched his hand back as the crystal flowed over Carlos’ head and face, and Carlos was still, those bottomless eyes looking at him with that painful look of fear and trust.

Cecil sat there for a long time, tears falling down his face, wishing that the memories in this beautiful place were beautiful.

But his brother, his bright twin, lay in pieces behind him, and his dear, sweet, perfectly imperfect Carlos lay broken and frozen in a crystalline prison, and Cecil felt more alone than he ever had before.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you thought about this, either here or on tumblr!


End file.
